Who can access the dolphin therapy programme?
A priori, this therapy is available to all children with physical or mental dysfunctions such as cerebral palsy, psycho-motor disorders without specific diagnosis, Down’s syndrome, tetraplegia and hemiplegia, spinal atrophy, depression, autism, and so on.
Families who wish to apply can do so by filling out a form on the Foundation's contact page . We will ask you for some basic information about the child such as height, weight, diagnosis, current state of health, if they like animals, motor ability, etc.
There are no physical or economic barriers to access this programme, since children from all parts of the province, Spanish geography and Europe can be found within it.
The foundation has also attended cases and provides this service to children from other continents. In addition, it is a free programme for families, with the Foundation itself being the entity that bears the full costs of it. After following these steps, the Foundation sends an information letter to the families informing them of the period of time during which their child will participate in the dolphin therapy programme.
With dolphin therapy we help to improve the quality of life of these children.
Since the development of these programmes began, more than 4,000 children with different pathologies have participated. Psycho-motor disorders without specific diagnosis, cerebral palsy, autism, Down’s syndrome, quadriplegic and hemiplegic children, with spinal atrophy, cerebral diseases...
The complicity of the dolphin to develop dolphin therapy programmes is based on the positive relationship that dolphins have towards humans: the joy that these animals show for the contact with people; the complexity of their behaviour and their ability to learn.
The dolphin seems to be responsible for the different positive changes in the children, especially in aspects such as getting more attention and concentration and also obtaining an improvement in the social contact between the child and their environment.
Animal interaction programmes in the marine environment
Dolphin-assisted therapy is performed in the Mundomar nature park. This therapy is not intended to replace conventional pharmacology and treatments, but to collaborate and provide symptomatic improvement as a contributing, complementary treatment. It is based on the healing capacity of an aquatic environment with seawater.
More than 15 years developing programmes
Fundación Mundomar has been developing and carrying out these dolphin therapy programmes for more than 15 years, assisting more than 4,000 children from all over the world with very diverse pathologies: cerebral palsy, autism, Down’s syndrome, quadriplegic children...
An attempt is made to improve the child's social relationship with their immediate environment
Each child receives a six-day continuous interaction programme. The programmes are individual, they start on Mondays and end on Saturdays and last 30 minutes. Our wish is that each child has the option of repeating the experience after a while.
Testimonials
La experiencia con los delfines y con Teo ha sido maravillosa...
Ángeles Peñalver (Madre de Teo)
Es increible, esto hay que hacerlo si o si, porque ellos se lo merecen...
Esther Ugido (Madre de Gael)
Aparte de ser ocio, es verla avanzar, es verla como va evolucionando...
Leire Hernández (Hermana de Henar)